Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Keeping track of expenses is a hassle, plain and simple. You can buy special scanners or box them up and ship them off to different services to scan. Or, you can just sign up for Evernote.

For each business receipt I receive, I use Evernote’s mobile app on either my iOS or Android device to snap a photo of the receipt and dump it into an Evernote notebook marked by year say, “2016 Expenses.” Sometimes I tag the photo, too, but mostly, I just snap the photo and upload.

Get Shift Done: Management

Building software for startups is a huge challenge. Not because writing the software itself is that hard, but most startups have managed to create the least optimal places to do work. In my 10+ years of experience as a software engineer at startups, I cannot trust employers to provide me with an adequate work environment, and this holds me back from doing the best possible work for them. I am an ambitious, driven individual, and I want nothing more than to provide the places I work with my best possible output. I will give whatever company I am working at 100%. Most of the places I have worked have done a great job at preventing me from doing this. That’s why from here on out, I am taking a stand and drawing a line in the sand. Henceforth I will only work in a “remote” arrangement.

Open offices

Most startups nowadays are obsessed with the open office environment, and it’s nearly impossible to find companies that do not implement this type of layout. They’ll claim it’s because they want an “open and transparent culture” (myth busted*), but if you know anything about the subject, you’ll know this is the worst possible setup for actual work, and doesn’t improve communication or culture. You don’t have to look far to find plenty of research on the subject- and quite frankly, there is simply no debate here. There is no evidence to support the hypothesis that open office layouts foster a more collaborative environment. Of course, office managers, CEO’s and founders selectively ignore the mountain of evidence which disproves this hypothesis. This is one of the real tragedies of the startup world. It’s hard to estimate how many startups are being held back by the obsession and group think around the open office environment. There is also the cost to the mental health of the employees who are subjected to these mad houses every day. As the startup scene continues to ingest, chew up, and spit out/burn out young talent, there is very little by way of wisdom in the scene to help push back on issues like this. In the words of DHH: “The open office plan is a tyrant of interruption, a deep loss of privacy, and the death of productivity”

Get Shift Done: Management

You’ve sent the emails, made the pitch, and landed the meeting. Big meeting, big stakes. So when you send a calendar invitation to hold another person’s valuable time, don’t be a noob — especially if you want the right people to show up at your meeting, at the right time.

In a perfect world:

You create the invitation in a calendar program…

which emails the invitation to the people you invite…

who accept the invitation…

at which point you are notified that the meeting is all set.

If the meeting’s time, place, or details change, that change is reflected on everyone’s calendar.

Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Prioritize and Organize, Use Shortcuts, and Trello Board Examples

Trello is well-known as a collaborative task management tool, but are you using Trello to its fullest? To help you make the most of the online solution, we’ve gathered five of our top tips for getting sh*t done.

Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

For many of us, some parts of each day can feel a bit like the movie Groundhog Day. Why? Because we have to perform the same tasks over and over. For example, we spend lots of time working between our various calendars saying things like, “OK, I’m free at that time on my work calendar, but what about my personal calendar?”

Thankfully, a new service entitled Microsoft Flow changes all that. It features pre-built ‘recipes’ to connect together the different calendars you use, as well as the ability to create custom workflows from scratch. Let’s take the example of ensuring you see all of the events across your calendars in one place.

First, head to https://flow.microsoft.com and sign in. You’ll need to read and accept the license agreement, as you are giving Microsoft access to other accounts so they can pipe data between them

Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

If you only use Trello to manage projects, then you’re missing out on a whole world of goodness. Yep, you can do just about anything with this online task tracking tool and it’s time to open your eyes to the possibilities by showing you what’s possible.

The Trello board examples below have been curated from the company’s “Inspiration” section and are but a taste of what you’ll find in the many categories they’ve created:

Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

One way to tame your inbox is to get emails you’re storing for reference purposes out of your inbox. This leaves you with a clutter-free inbox containing just emails you need to process.

Evernote for Outlook makes extracting the important information from your inbox a breeze. The Evernote add-in means you can ‘clip’ email messages, as well as attachments, directly from Outlook to Evernote.

Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Web-based project management platforms like Trello can be awesome for tracking all your tasks. However, without a strategy to rescue you from the tension between short-term tasks and long-term projects, you’re likely to miss your goals.

Using the approach below will help you balance these two types of tasks, especially if they span a wide range of projects, clients, timeframes, and levels of urgency.

Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

If you write or edit a lot of text, chances are that your inbox is stuffed full of multiple iterations of document drafts. Did you know that you can save time and the endless back and forth by utilizing Quip’s real time messaging system?